Dump car door operating mechanism



Oct. 18, 1949. A. E zlMMER DUMP CAR DOOR OPERATING MECHANISM 2 Sheets-Sheet 1 Filed Feb. l2t 1945 w INVENTOR. ,Zim/'ner' Oct. 18, 1949. A. E. ZIMMER DUMP CAR DOOR OPERATING MECHANISM 2 Sheets-Sheet 2 Filed Feb. l2, 1945 INVENTOR. 8K'

Patented Oct. 18, 1949 DUMP CAR DOOR OPERATING MECI'IANISM Albert E. Zimmer, Chicago, Ill., assignor to Enterprise Railway Equipment Company, Chicago, Ill., a corporation of Illinois 4 Application February 12, 1945, Serial No. 577,465

2 Claims.

My invention relates to improvements in dump car door operating mechanisms of the type shown in the Patent No. 1,705,806, issued March 19, 1929, to Argyle Campbell.

One of the objects of the invention is to `provide an improved shaft shifting and door wedging mechanism in the door operating mechanism of the type shown in said patent, which will prevent the wear on the cooperating parts and will insure the positive and effective engagement of said parts repeatedly.

Other objects of the invention will appear hereinafter.

The invention consists in the combination, construction and arrangement of parts hereinafter described and set forth in the appended claims, in connection with the accompanying drawings which represents one embodiment of the invention.

Referring to these drawings,

Fig. 1 is a partial cross section of a car with the door in closed position and sufficient of the door operating mechanism for an understanding of the invention;

Fig. 2 is a front elevation of the winding spool, shaft and Wedging parts of the door operating mechanism, as shown in Fig. 1; and

Fig. 3 is an enlarged sectional View on the line 3-3 in Fig. 2.

In cars of the type shown in said patent, to which reference may be had for an understanding of the complete door operating mechanism, the doors A are hinged at their inner sides l to swing vertically to open or closed position. At their outer edges the doors are connected by means of flexible connections such as chains, which wind upon or unwind from spool members B as the doors are raised or lowered to closed or open positions respectively. These spool members are mounted on a shaft C which is rotatable in either direction by suitable manual operating means to wind the iieXible connections on or unwind them from said spool members. The shaft is mounted in bearings 2 which are in the form of elongated horizontally disposed slots which permit the shaft to shift bodily to and from position beneath the outer edge portions 3 of the doors, so that when the shaft is beneath the margins of the door it supports the doors in closed position, and where the shaft is in the outer ends of its bearing slots, the support for the doors is removed and the doors are allowed to fall or swing downwardly to open position.

The winding spools have circular gear members 5 at their ends which engage the under sides of wedge members 6 mounted on the under sides 55 bers, so that no change can occur.

of the doors adjacent the margins thereof. The outer ends or noses 1 of the wedge members are, as shown more clearly in Fig. 3, curved upwardly and project a slight distance beyond the marginal edges of the doors, so that when the doors have been raised to substantially closed position by the winding up of the flexible connections and the shaft begins to move bodily while rotating to a position beneath the doors, the curved noses of the wedge members ride upon the peripheries of the gear members and cause the doors to be tightly wedged closed against the door frames 8.

It has been the practice to provide the periphery of the gear member 5 and the under side of the wedge members 6 with a series of serrations or teeth to provide a connection between said members to force the shaft and gear members beneath the wedge members. The teeth or serrations on both members have been made generally V-shaped and relatively line or small as the teeth 9 shown on member 5, so as to insure engagement and prevent jamming even though there may be some variation in the relative positions of the members. In practice the gear members 5 are generally made of malleable iron which permits of the formation of relatively small and perfect teeth, whereas the wedge members are made of cast steel so that they can be effectively welded to 'the door. Cast steel, however, does not mold with suflicient fluidity to permit the formation of perfect teeth of such small size, with the result that the teeth in use soon chipped or wore away to the extent that the Wedge member surfaces soon became relatively smooth, thus destroying the positive engagement between said wedge and gear member and rendering it very diiicult to force the shaft and gear member to wedge the door closed.

In accordance with my invention, I have found that these difficulties with respect to the defective and worn teeth or serrations on the wedge member are completely eliminated and overcome by making the teeth lvon the wedge members relatively larger than those on the gear members 5. Specifically these teeth are of the same shape as the teeth 9 of the gear, but they are sufficiently larger so that they have twice the pitch as that of the teeth S, as shown more clearly in Fig. 3. r'ihus these teeth Sil engage aiternate teeth 9 of the gear wheel and embrace two of the teeth 9 in the valley between two of the teeth lil. The teeth on the two members will engage and mesh with the same facility as the smaller teeth did with respect to slight variations in the relative position of the two mem- These larger teeth can, in accordance with molding practice, be made relatively perfect and have suiiiciently greater strength than the smaller teeth so that in use they do not chip or break oi or wear to the extent that they become ineiective. The result is that the meshing engagement of the teeth of the two members is maintained after repeated operations and is maintained throughout the life of the rest of the mechanism. It is obvious, however, that the advantages of the larger teeth on the wedging members are retained if the wedging members are made of malleable iron instead of cast steel.

I claim:

1. In a car door operating mechanism of the class described, the combination with a dump door hinged to swing vertically to closed or open position, an operating shaft rotatable in either direction and mounted for bodily movement to or from a supporting position beneath the edge portion of the door, a wheel on the shaft having a series of serrations on its periphery in the form of V-shape-d teeth with flat wall bearing surfaces, a cooperating member on the underside of the door adjacent the front margin thereof having a series of serrations on the underside thereof arranged in the form of V-shaped teeth with at wall bearing surfaces, said V arranged walls on the wheel and member being disposed in similar angular relation and said teeth on the member being of twice the pitch of those on the wheel whereby the iat walls of the valley between a pair of teeth on the member will embrace two of the teeth on the wheel and the said embracing walls will engage with the at outer walls of the pair of teeth on the wheel.

2. In a car door operating mechanism of the class described, the combination with a dump 5 door hinged along one margin to swing vertically to closed or open position, an operating shaft rotatable in either direction and mounted for bodily movement to or from a supporting position beneath the opposite margin of the door, a caststeel wedge member welded to the under side of the door adjacent the opposite margin having a series of relatively coarse V-shaped teeth cast integrally therewith, and a malleable iron gear wheel on the shaft having a series of relatively ne V-shaped teeth on its periphery, the pitch 0f the teeth on said wedge member being twice the pitch of the teeth on said gear wheel whereby the former can be cast eiciently to form the larger teeth less likely to be worn away in operation while the latter can be made eiiciently with a larger number of smaller teeth thereby insuring engagement and preventing jamming between the teeth of said wedge member and said gear wheel.

ALBERT E. ZIMMER.

REFERENCES CITED file of this patent:

'UNITED STATES PATENTS Number Name Date 595,156 Fairchild Dec. '7, 1897 1,040,618 Campbell Oct. 8, 1912 1,311,562 Hosceit July 29, 1919 

